Words Have Power…Especially From the Powerful

When I was a child I learned the poem of solace, that was supposed to salve the hurts of hateful words…spoken by bullies.

‘Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’

Of course, we all learn early on that words do hurt and that those who proudly claim that they are not affected by mean and sarcastic and juvenile name calling…are some of those that are hurt the most.

In school we, painfully accepted, that there were, among us, the emotionally stilted and people that were so insecure that they must belittle and make fun of and name call others…in order to fill some vast vacancy in their soul. People who felt so small and insignificant that their recourse was to create and compound those feelings in another human being and thus to feel like that they were at least better than the poor individual that they chose to persecute.

As a rule, when a teacher or a principal or an adult and an authority figure saw what was transpiring…they came to the aid of the person who was being bullied and instructed the bully to cease and desist.

What if, when a person was being bullied, the teacher and the adult and authority figure and the Principal and the Superintendent joined in and became the Bully in Chief?

I was the Assistant Superintendent of Building Services for twelve years. On more than one occasion I had to dissuade and even order members of my staff to not do something or say something that my boss, the Superintendent, had encouraged them to do.

Racial slurs….fighting…and swimming in the Pulliam Pool after hours…were neither right nor defendable and they were, indeed, infractions that could lead to suspension and termination. Yet, the members of my, and the Superintendent’s staff, assured me that since their boss, and mine, had assured them that they would be alright that they felt secure in indulging in the the prohibited activities.

History teaches us what power words have…in the mouth of the powerful.

‘Adolf Hitler had provided clues to his ambition to commit mass genocide as early as 1922, telling journalist Josef Hell, ‘Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.’ Smithsonian.com

‘As soon as I have power to do so I will have gallows built in rows-at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example-as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.’ Statement to Josef Heil, 1922 quoted in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution pg. 17

‘Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites because we want to fight against the very opposite; materialism and mammonism…How can you not be an antisemite, being a socialist!’ Adolf Hitler Why We Are Anti-Semites, ‘August 15, 1920 speech in Munich at the Hofbrauhaus. Translated from Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeigeschichte, 16. Jahrg., 4.H.(Oct 1968), pp. 390-420. Edited by Carolyn Yeager. [2]

‘President Donald J. Trump hosted a Make America Great Again rally this evening in Pennsylvania. Per usual, the Donald’s flamboyant and charismatic personality charmed the standing room only crown. However, the loudest reaction and most amused came when the president referred to NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd as a ‘sleepy eyed’ ‘sleeping son of a bitch.’ Townhall

Members of the media have received death threats as a direct result of president Trump’s continued pronouncements of fake news and calling out individuals, on a regular basis, for ridicule and catcalls and taunts.

I took Journalism classes at SIU…it is a noble profession and unworthy of the disdain and danger that the professionals in this Constitutionally recognized field are members of.

Most human relations seem academic…until they are on our doorstep…then…suddenly…they are crisis.